mixingmemory
Posts by this author
September 30, 2006
One of the top ten coolest experiments ever has to be Botvinick and Cohen's "rubber hand" experiment1. I'm going to let them describe the manipulation:
Each of ten subjects was seated with their left arm resting upon a small table. A standing screen was positioned beside the arm to hide it from the…
September 29, 2006
The last couple weeks have seen a flurry of papers on mirror neurons, with three in last week's issue of Current Biology, and the paper on mirror neurons and sexual orientation in press at NeuroImage (is it just me, or will that journal publish anything?) that is fast becoming infamous (see posts…
September 27, 2006
OK, I learned of this site from Positive Liberty, and tried desperately to resist it, but ultimately was unable to. The result of my weakness:
And if you recognize the "slogan," the answer is yes, I am a big fan.
September 27, 2006
The other day, I talked about terror management theory (TMT) and modern art. That probably wasn't the best way to introduce TMT, because it's a bit of a stretch to turn TMT into an aesthetic theory. Instead, I should have started by looking at some studies on TMT and cultural values and beliefs,…
September 24, 2006
I just got an email about a new blog on music cognition, Sound and Mind. From the email:
The vision for Sound and Mind is to provide an interdisciplinary hub, a place for cognitive musicologists, scientists, and critical theorists to discuss and critique each other's work and to build professional…
September 24, 2006
Via Will Wilkerson, I learned of Richard Rorty's very good review of Marc Hauser's Moral Minds. He's very critical both of Hauser's moral nativism and of Hauser's more optimistic claims about the study of moral psychology. John McKhail, who is a moral nativist, and has done some interesting work on…
September 23, 2006
I was reminded of this illusion by the Seed Daily Zeitgeist yesterday. In order to get the full effect, I'll show you one set of photos here, and the rest of the post will be below the fold. The first are from Schwanginer et al. (2003)1:
They look pretty normal, right? Now look at these:
Gross,…
September 22, 2006
Been a while, but I thought I'd start doing this again now and then. First, the serious link. If you haven't read about the doctor and five nurses who have been unjustly sentenced to death in Libya, you should. Unfortunately, I don't think any amount outcry in this country will change the verdict,…
September 21, 2006
A few days ago, the New York Mets clinched the National League East title, becoming the first team to win a division with the Atlanta Braves in it, other than the Braves, since 1990 (excluding the strike-shortened 1994 season, of course). This marked the end of the longest streak of consecutive…
September 21, 2006
Earlier this month, Mixing Memory turned 2 years old. So, happy belated birthday, Mixing Memory, and thanks to everyone who's visited in the last two years, and especially to those who've left comments and feedback. If you haven't yet left comments or feedback, then... why the hell not? I mean,…
September 20, 2006
There's been some hubbub recently over a study by Gerber and Malhotra (you can get a copy in pdf here), which shows a couple things. First, political science journals don't publish many articles that report negative (null) results, but instead tend to publish those that report statistically…
September 20, 2006
I've never really hung out in a social psychology laboratory, but here is how I picture a typical day in one. There are some social psychologists sitting around, drinking some sort of exotic tea, and free associating. One psychologist will say the name of a random social psychological theory, and…
September 16, 2006
Back on the old blog, I wrote a series of posts in which I detailed a revolution in moral psychology. Sparked largely by recent empirical and theoretical work by neuroscientists, psychologists studying moral judgment have transitioned from Kantian rationalism, that goes back as far as, well, Kant (…
September 14, 2006
A little over a year ago, I reviewed David Buller's anti-Evolutionary Psychology book, Adapting Minds, arguing that, at least in the most important chapter, it fell far short of "demolishing" Evolutionary Psychology, as one philosopher claimed it had done. The problem, I noted, is that Buller didn'…
September 13, 2006
No, seriously. The paper in which Carrie Jenkins presents a conceptual analysis of flirting is here (via Online Papers in Philosophy). An except:
What is it to flirt? Do you have to intend to flirt with someone in order to count as doing so? Can such things as dressing a certain way count as…
September 10, 2006
OK, this has nothing to do with cognitive science, but today's quake felt throughout the southeast reminded me of a little history that some people may not be aware of. In Tennessee, there is only one large natural lake, Reelfoot Lake, in the far western part of the state just south of Kentucky,…
September 9, 2006
Over the years I'd heard that, lurking in the basements of psychology departments at various universities throughout the world, there are psychologists studying music cognition, but until the publication of a special issue of the journal Cognition, I hadn't really paid any attention to them. That…
August 31, 2006
Hi, I just wanted to apologize for the lack of posting over the last month. I've had computer issues and traveling, which don't mix well together and have left me with few opportunities to blog. I'll be posting pretty much every day starting after the weekend.
July 23, 2006
There are a few topics in cognitive science that are like fingernails on a chalkboard to me. I find the very mention of them irritating, and the irritation can stick in my craw for days. At or near the top of that list are mirror neurons. These little cells have been made so sexy, either by their…
July 21, 2006
From what I know of Graham Priest, he's an interesting philosopher. I read his book on intentionality, Towards Non-Being a few months ago, and enjoyed it, and I read his Introduction to Non-Classical Logic a few years ago, and have recommended it. So when I saw that he had written a paper titled "…
July 21, 2006
Those of you interested in this whole frame analysis thing, or in George Lakoff's new cult of personality, might find his blog interview at Emboldened. I'm planning on writing a post about Lakoff when my computer access is more consistent, because I've been thinking about his (and Mark Johnson's)…
July 20, 2006
That's it for the republishing of the old posts, for now at least. If you read the posts on art and/or metaphor, I hope you enjoyed them, and maybe even learned something. For administrative purposes, I'm including links to all 8 posts here:
Cognitive Science of Art
Goals and Motivations of…
July 20, 2006
[First posted on 11/03/04 at the old blog.]
In the final installment of Mixing Memory's metaphor series (for now -- at some later date I'll get to novel vs. dead metaphors), I try to use the empirical data to distinguish between the categorization and structure mapping theories of metaphor. Before…
July 19, 2006
[First published on 2/4/05 at the old blog.]
If you've read my two previous posts on Ramachandran's principles of art (here and here), you've probably got a good idea of what Ramachandran's concept of beauty is. While his 10 principles of art are concerned more with the production of art and the…
July 18, 2006
[First posted on 11/1/04 at the old blog.]
I have heard that there is an election today, and I've heard that it's going to be close and contentious, but I don't care. Here at Mixing Memory, we're only worried about metaphor for now (and soon, classical vs. connectionist architectures, and perhaps…
July 17, 2006
[First published on 1/22/05 at the old blog.]
Recall V.S. Ramachandran's 10 principles of art.
Peak shift
Perceptual Grouping and Binding
Contrast
Isolation
Perceptual problem solving
Symmetry
Abhorrence of coincidence/generic viewpoint
Repetition, rhythm and orderliness
Balance
Metaphor
In the…
July 16, 2006
[First posted on 11/1/04 at the old blog.]
Onward we go to the first contemporary view of metaphor, structure mapping theory. Before I start, though, I want to clear something up. Perhaps no one has actually been confused, but I'm afraid that I haven't made something clear that should be made clear…
July 15, 2006
[First published on 1/20/05 at the old blog.]
As a starting point for the attempt to discover universals in art based on our knowledge of neuroscience, and visual neuroscience in particular, V.S. Ramachandran has proposed ten principles of art (eight of which come from the paper he wrote with…
July 14, 2006
[First posted on 10/31/04 at the old blog]
From Aristotle through speech act theories, metaphor had been viewed as a secondary type of language, built on literal speech which is, in turn, the true nature of language. However, since the 1970s, cognitive scientists have become increasingly convinced…
July 13, 2006
[First posted on 1/20/05 at the old blog]
With all the controversy surrounding the issues in my last few posts, I thought it would be refreshing to talk about something completely uncontroversial: the existence of universals in art based on neurological mechanisms. (That was a joke, people). I've…